Moby Francke, Half-Life 2 character designer and Team Fortress 2 art lead
Jason Holtman, director of business development for Steam and Steamworks
Keith Huggins, character animator and animator for Team Fortress 2 “Meet the” video series
Tom Leonard, software engineer for Half-Life 2 and Left 4 Dead
Realm Lovejoy, artist for Half-Life 2, Portal, and Left 4 Dead. She was also part of the original DigiPen-turned-Valve team that created Narbacular Drop, the inspiration for Portal
Marc Nagel, test lead for Half-Life, Counter-Strike, and patch updates
Bay Raitt, animator for Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal
Elan Ruskin, engine programmer for Left 4 Dead, Portal 2, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Matthew Russell, animator for Team Fortress 2 “Meet the” video series

This is really odd, if it had just been hardware people, like it looked like earlier, then you could possibly say maybe the Steambox was being put on the backburner (not the Pyro weapon) but this is more than that.

First I thought that this was about them cancelling the steam box and firing hardware people because MS have suddenly become pals with Valve, what with the rumours of Halo 2 and 3 coming out on steam and GFWL shutting down.

But the firings are a lot more diverse than just hardware guys, they're probably getting rid of all the lazy people or staff surplus to requirements.

They do (according to neogaf) have a high staff turnover as new employees struggle to adapt to the corporate culture although that wouldn't explain these sackings.

Edited by ResidentKnievel at 21:16:45 13-02-2013

[code]Armoured_Bear wrote:
Unlike yourself, I don't have a weird obsession with any platform.[/code]

Some pretty major guys and girls from the software side of things there. Would be interesting to know the reasons - could be streamlining but due to the success of Steam it's not like Valve are cash strapped.

In regards to the TF2 layoffs. Yeah the "Meet the..." videos have been finished for a while, they don't really need anymore animations since the game is pretty much done and they've moved to using much of the community stuff in their updates. Looks like they're just letting people go who aren't needed anymore at this particular time.

Sad as that is (was made redundant myself this monday so it can be a kick in the balls) the fact these guys have TF2, half-life 2, Left 4 Dead 2 amongst others on their CV means that (hopefully) they'll be snapped up by other companies.

Kostabi wrote:
Maybe the lack of software actually coming out of Valve these days has finally taken a toll?

Doubtful...DOTA 2 alone is probably enough to ensure that Valve survive, the MOBA market is big business and Valve have got the biggest name in that market (the DOTA name...not the Valve name)...while not the biggest game yet it is looking to be considered the 'professionals' choice when it comes to MOBA games with HoN and LoL (especially LoL) being seen as the casual MOBA fans games.

E-sports are big money apparently so if DOTA 2 does take off in a big way it will definitely keep Valve afloat for a while.

Armoured_Bear wrote:
Moby Francke, Half-Life 2 character designer and Team Fortress 2 art lead
Jason Holtman, director of business development for Steam and Steamworks
Keith Huggins, character animator and animator for Team Fortress 2 “Meet the” video series
Tom Leonard, software engineer for Half-Life 2 and Left 4 Dead
Realm Lovejoy, artist for Half-Life 2, Portal, and Left 4 Dead. She was also part of the original DigiPen-turned-Valve team that created Narbacular Drop, the inspiration for Portal
Marc Nagel, test lead for Half-Life, Counter-Strike, and patch updates
Bay Raitt, animator for Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal
Elan Ruskin, engine programmer for Left 4 Dead, Portal 2, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Matthew Russell, animator for Team Fortress 2 “Meet the” video series

All gone...

Most of them don't seem to have done anything for 5 years then... that's probably why they've gone.